Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's Metacritic score narrowly beats Battlefield 6 based on early reviews, earns second-highest rating of the Black Ops series so far

Reviews are dripping in for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and it's looking like a series highlight. Early scores have the seventh installment as the second best in the Black Ops strain, and clean above the franchise's bottom-rated games besides.

At the time of writing, the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Metacritic is sitting at 84, just scraping over Battlefield 6's 83, and only three points below the original Black Ops, which stands tall at 87. Almost every other entry from this subset of Call of Duty is between 81 and 83, except poor old Black Ops Cold War, which remains the lowest rated, at 76.

It should be noted that Black Ops 7's score comes from only nine critic reviews at the moment, with many major outlets, including yours truly at GamesRadar+, still to provide scores. Compare this to the 89 for the first Black Ops, and you can see why the number may fluctuate in the coming days, even if we're off to a good start.

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Developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, Black Ops 7 marks the sixth time the two studios have collaborated on a game in the Black Ops series. Generally more of a multiplayer-focused team, Treyarch tends to focus on the modes outside of the campaign, including the infamous and beloved Call of Duty: Zombies.

Raven Software, then, has handled the single-player story for the last couple of Black Ops games. This is in addition to developing and supporting Warzone, Call of Duty's massive, stand-alone battle royale mode; a busy studio, to say the least.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is out now. Check out our Black Ops 7 release time guide to make sure you can access it.

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